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My face warms and a smile bleeds its way onto my face. It’s almost enough to make me forget the threats Dean Shea and Dr. Sims made. Almost.

“What’s up, lamb? Miss your class?”

I slide into the seat across from her, take in the caramel-colored sweater stretching tight across her chest, the curve of her Cupid’s bow, the way she’s tossed her silky hair into a messy bun, and pass a tongue over my lips. She is literally perfect, isn’t she?

I reach for my coffee. “Thanks for this.” Heat leaks through me as I take a sip, and I will the mortification away.

And the other thing, that I cannot entertain. I’m distracted enough as it is.

“So?”

“So, nothing.” I clear my throat. “I don’t want to talk about it. But here.” I pull the sweat-dampened piece of paper from my pocket and put it down in front of her. “Have you heard of vættir?”

Her laugh is smoky. “I have heard of them, yes. Vættir. Beings. Horrid, really.” The Icelandic word sounds at home on her tongue, nestling between her teeth.

Wonder what it’s like.

I shake myself. “Yes. Well, specifically, I think landvættir. I found a diary by a Norwegian woman in the Rare Book Room.”

She stills a moment. “How old?”

“Fourteenth or fifteenth century. Why?”

She’s looking at me curiously, her blinks slow as a cat’s. “Just fascinating. I wonder how they got their hands on something like that.”

“Does it matter right now?” I ask, impatient.

“No, of course not. Continue.” She’s paled but waves a hand.

“At first, I thought we might have a vampire on our hands, but…”

“Too much blood left behind for that, I think,” Marcella says as she takes a sip of her own drink. Her voice steadies. “I suppose it could be landvættir, but that would assume there are a lot of them.” She skims down my writing, the random hard stop. “You should go back and see if you can finish today. I worry that there’ve been two killings in close proximity.”

“I was wondering about that, too,” I say. “Perhaps there’s more than one culprit?”

“The killings were so similar, though.” She taps a fingernail against her lips.

There’s a soft cry from the woman behind the espresso bar. She’s staring at her phone, a hand pressed against her mouth. She looks positively green.

“We weren’t too loud, were we?” I whisper to Marcella.

“No,” she murmurs. “This is something else.”

Someone flicks on the ancient, dusty TV in the corner, turns the volume up.

“This is Boston 25,” the anchor says, her made-up face serious. “Police have found the body of a professor at a trash collection site near Preston University. Dr. Arjun Patel, thirty-seven, was a rising star in the competitive Classics department…”

I go cold, my eyes cutting to Marcella. She looks stricken; in the face of her fear, my eyes go hot, vision clouding. Until now, she’s been an anchor. But what if this overwhelms the both of us? We thought we were going to find Laurel’s killer, but the deaths keep coming. Marcella might be strong, but this is …

This is too big for us. And it’s no longer just women who were struggling in the department, putting paid to all our theories about academic star status and misogyny. No, this is something else.

“—have John Shea, head of Classics at Preston, on the line. Sir?”

“This is just such a shame,” Dr. Shea says, his voice suffused with emotion. “When I found out about Arjun’s death early this morning, it was a shock. I plead with the community around Preston and Boston as a whole: help bring this killer to justice.” Did he know about this before he confronted me? He seemed fine. My eyes travel back to Marcella; she’s already looking at me, her gaze unreadable.

There’s a police officer on the screen now. “—the body was found in a state of advanced decay,” the man says, his jowls wobbling over the tight navy neck of his uniform, “but we know from eyewitness accounts that Patel was seen alive on campus only days ago. His death—” He falters. “Well, I’ve seen many murders in my time, but none like this. It … it offends the senses.” His face glows bright red, spittle forming at the corners of his lips. He shakes his head as he grips the podium hard enough to turn his knuckles white. “We are investigating foul play…”

Marcella stands from our table and gestures for me to follow her. “Come on.”